Traditional foes UDF, LDF battle for Kerala's 2.4 mn votes

Thiruvananthapuram, April 8 (IANS) At the end of the long, sustained, acrimonious electoral campaign, the fate of Kerala's traditional political foes, the Congress-led UDF and the Left-supported LDF will be decided Thursday by over 2.4 million voters.

Perhaps for the first time in Kerala's electoral politics, which has been dominated by the United Democratic Front (UDF) and the Left Democratic Front (LDF), the performance of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) as an emerging entity is also a subject of speculation in these elections.

The BJP, which is yet to open its account even in the 140-member Kerala assembly, put up a spirited campaign in the run-up to these elections. The party, some feel, could spring a surprise if any of its candidates ends up as runner-up in some constituencies on the counting day.

In the outgoing Lok Sabha, the UDF has 16 parliamentarians and the CPI-M led LDF has four members.

For the Congress, it was Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy who took the fight to the rival camp early on. The confident chief minister made these Lok Sabha elections a referendum on his governance, which is nearing mid-term.

The Left, however, is unwilling to view the polls as a referendum on Chandy's performance.

"This person (Chandy) has no shame to speak like this," CPI-M state secretary Pinarayi Vijayan hits back at Chandy's boast.

The campaign itself, which began in the third week of March, was marked by slanging matches on issues ranging from the political murder of Left leader T.P. Chandrasekharan, the multi-million rupee solar scam which indicts Chandy and a green controversy involving the K. Kasturirangan Committee report on the ecology of the Western Ghats.

Even the national leaders who campaigned in Kerala, including the prime minister, touched on these issues, underlining their importance in Kerala's electoral discourse.

From the looks of it, the UDF appears upbeat, especially if one reads between the lines. The manner in which Defence Minister A.K. Antony, otherwise known for his soft-spoken approach, went hammer and tongs against the CPI-M is a case in point.

Antony ruffled many a Left feathers, when he called the LDF a non-entity and pointed out that this time the Left will be limited to a dozen seats at the national level.

But the Left, especially its veteran campaigner V.S.Achuthanandan, believes otherwise.

Slamming the Congress every now and then, the former chief minister claims that people here will teach the Congress and Chandy a lesson and the Left will emerge victorious.

Barring one opinion poll that gave the Left here 11 seats, all other opinion polls have predicted that the UDF will walk away with top honours.

Kerala's biggest Lok Sabha battle will be fought at Kollam, where CPI-M politburo member M.A. Baby takes on N.K. Premachandran of the Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP).

Baby, who expected a cakewalk, got a rude jolt when the RSP, a three decades long ally of the Left, joined forces with the UDF ahead of the general elections.

The other two interesting battles are being fought at Thiruvananthapuram, where union Minister of State Shashi Tharoor is pitted against Bennet Abraham of the CPI and the old BJP war horse O. Rajagopal in a three-way battle.

At Chalakkudy in Thrissur, veteran comedian and character artiste and Left-backed Independent candidate Innocent, is taking on senior Congress leader P.C. Chacko.

The decision of the CPI-M to field non-party candidates for five of the 15 constituencies it has been allotted, has also become a key electoral issue and has been effectively raked up by the UDF.

The fate of the 20 Lok Sabha seats up for grabs in Kerala will be decided by 24,251,942 voters April 10. Kerala has 12,570,439 women voters as against 11,681,503 male voters.

The poll will see 242 male candidates and 27 women candidates vying for the seats. This time round there are 21,424 polling stations and 11,969 polling locations.

The entire poll exercise will be conducted by 105,049 officials.